# MSG-206 — No sweepstakes, raffle or contest-entry content

> Campaign content must not promote sweepstakes, raffles, prize giveaways or contest entry.

- **Rule ID:** MSG-206
- **Layer:** Message content (`MESSAGE_CONTENT`)
- **Checks:** `campaign.description + campaign.sample[] + campaign.message_flow`
- **Severity:** BLOCKING — Breaking this rule gets the submission rejected outright.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** AI judgement over the submitted form
- **Fix type:** Hard stop — not remediable, resubmission will not help
- **Required by:** Twilio, AWS, Bandwidth, Telnyx, Sinch
- **Applies:** Applies to every 10DLC registration.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/message-content/msg-206/

## Why this rule exists

Twilio files sweepstakes under gambling and refuses the category outright for "high abuse potential and regulatory complexity", while TCR and Sinch publish a Sweepstakes use case you can register under — so the same giveaway is a legitimate programme on one route and a dead campaign on another. That split is what makes this expensive: a marketing team runs the giveaway that worked last year, registers it as MARKETING, and loses the campaign rather than being told to change one dropdown. Prize mechanics also carry real consumer harm on SMS, because a giveaway is the cheapest way ever invented to buy a phone number from someone who was not thinking about what they were joining.

## How to fix it

Check whether your route publishes a Sweepstakes use case before you do anything else, because that decides whether this is a dropdown change or the end of the campaign. Where it exists, register under it and link the official rules from the message. Where it does not, replace the chance-based mechanic with a certain one — every subscriber gets the discount — and remove the draw from the samples, the description and the opt-in copy.

## Common mistakes

- Moving the draw out of the samples but leaving "enter to win" in the opt-in call to action does not settle it: the incentivised-opt-in limb is judged on the message flow, and that is where the offer usually lives.

## Provider rejection codes

| Provider | Code | Resubmission allowed |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Twilio (gen2) | `30945` | no |
| Twilio | `30462` | no |

## Notes

Genuine authority divergence rather than a strictness difference: Twilio 30945 and toll-free 30462 refuse the category, while TCR and Sinch (CR1105, CR2009, CR3009) provide a Sweepstakes use case to register it under. Kept BLOCKING on the strict reading, with the use-case route named in the remediation so a user on a permissive route is not told to abandon a legitimate programme.